“Thanks for thinking of me,” she says before pouring milk into her cereal.
“And… er… What is Uncle Seth having for breakfast?” I ask as indifferently as possible.
“Eggs and bacon. Or eggs and sausage,” Logan informs me. “Sometimes a cereal mix.”
I look at him curiously.
“It’s a mix of ours.”
“Oh, right.”
I also eat eggs at the weekend, when I have more time to prepare something for breakfast. But I doubt Seth eats an omelette made only of egg whites.
“May I?” I ask Logan, pointing at his box.
“Help yourself.”
I take a bowl too, a blue one with gold dots, and sit down with them.
“You were saying about this project.” I pick up where we left off.
“None of the ideas I came up with really excite me.”
“Why is that?”
“They look like things that anyone can do.”
“He wants to do special things,” Emily tells me. “Difficult things.”
“He wants to be a know-it-all,” Mason adds.
“That’s not true!” Logan warms up a little. “I’m just trying to stand out from the crowd. What’s wrong with that?”
“If you want, we can work on it together tonight,” I suggest.
All three of them turn to look at me and I am immediately uncomfortable with what I have just said.
“What’s going on here?” Seth’s voice makes me turn away, almost knocking over the bowl of cereal.
“We’re having breakfast. Come sit down.” Emily stands up to signal her uncle to sit down. There are only four chairs at the table. Seth walks over and sits down, with Emily sitting on his lap.
“Good morning,” he says to me, a barely perceptible blush on his beautiful face, still showing the remnants of last night’s glitter.
Did I just mention he has a beautiful face?
Shit.
“Good morning to you.” I try to look away from the face in question and immediately get up from the table. “There’s coffee,” I say. “I just made it.”
“Some coffee is just what I need.” He reaches into one of the cereal boxes and takes a big handful, stuffing his mouth and chewing noisily.
I smile, and I don’t even know why, standing in this family’s kitchen, the coffee carafe half lifted, that strange, inexplicable feeling of light and morning filling me.
“What were you talking about?” Seth asks, pulling me out of my daydream, the first one I have allowed myself in so many years.
“Rowan offered to help me choose a project for the science fair.”
“Rowan did what…?” He turns towards me, forcing me to straighten up immediately and finally pour the coffee into a pink cup. I bring it to the table and Seth thanks me.
